Tim Collard is a retired British diplomat who spent most of his career in China and Germany. He is an active member of the Labour Party.

A passage through India? Don’t even think about it

Some time ago I penned a jeremiad against Switzerland, seen as a place to stop over on a plane journey. Now I have a new candidate shooting to the very top of the black list.

Recently I went to Bangkok, and found a very cheap fare with a small Indian airline called Kingfisher. I don’t scruple to name them, because they were highly efficient and helpful and none of the following was their fault. If I do not fly with them again, it will be purely because it involves transiting their country of origin. On the outward journey I had a bit of bad luck which made it necessary to reschedule my flight; Kingfisher managed this very smartly, pointing out that I would now be transiting Delhi en route rather than Bombay. Fair enough. It was only later that I realised that, whereas the stopover in Bombay would have been two and a half hours, in Delhi it would be fifteen.

Still, not the end of the world. That might give me time to see a bit of a city I’d never seen before, hoist in some delicious nosh, and maybe find a cheap hotel for a few hours’ kip. Only en route did I realise that I would be able to do nothing of the kind, as I didn’t have a visa. Now why do we Brits need a visa for India? Pure mean-spirited reciprocity, that’s why. We require visas from Indians because there are about a billion of them, mostly poor. It’s not as if there are floods of British paupers striving to go and mooch around Bangalore looking for work or charity. No, we require visas so they require them too.

And so the transit passengers were expertly marshalled by the Kingfisher staff, who got us through the infinitely meticulous Indian bureaucracy – which at least killed two of our fifteen hours – and deposited us in the transit lounge. And there we stayed. Nothing but the usual plastic chairs. Yes, there were a couple of stalls selling drinks and snacks, but only if you had rupees or dollars, and how many Brits heading for Thailand have those? And the only money-changers were the other side of Immigration. Nothing to eat or drink for fifteen hours. And nowhere to lie down for a whole day between two overnight flights.

Still, one survives: Thailand was every bit as wonderful as one expects. Cut to the sad farewell, when for once I got to the airport in good time and headed for the duty free. To the thirsty but impecunious traveller these are of course a godsend, and I spent my remaining baht on a bottle of hugely superior hooch. So to Bombay (the Indian name for the city: “Mumbai” is for the consumption of foreigners and swivel-eyed Hindu fascists). It was a short stopover, and we were all marshalled again by the excellent Kingfisher people. Of course, this being India with its “licence Raj” of endless procedures, we had to go through security all over again, despite there being no way on earth we could have acquired any forbidden material since our thorough search in Bangkok. But they clearly don’t trust the Thais as far as they could throw them. You guessed it: they took exception to my bottle, still firmly sealed in its duty-free bag. No way was I allowed to take that on the plane – only duty-free stuff bought at Bombay airport itself could be let through. Kingfisher assured me this was no requirement of theirs; it was their plane and they were prepared to take the risk, but Indian security knew better. “Go and drop it over there,” they barked at me. I thought briefly of taking them at their word and dropping it from a great height, but you don’t muck about at airports. I confined myself to opening bag and bottle and taking a couple of colossal and ostentatious swigs before departing for my flight.

So sod India, at least as far as air transit is concerned. Obviously, if one were actually visiting the country, you'd read the rules and prepare accordingly. But I’m sure more generally that these ghastly and never-ending rules and regulations can only serve to hobble India's economic development, no matter how clever the people are. I’ll back the Chinese to win this race; they kicked India’s arse in 1962 and they’ll do so again.